Lecturer - Robin Teigland [robin.teigland@hhs.se] slideshows at http://www.slideshare.net/eteigland
(Born in America, married to Norwegian, research in Sweden.)
What do virtual worlds have to offer?
Topic
How virtual can be real, or the real be virtual
Augmented reality – A mix of real reality and virtual elements. An industry in its infancy, but promising multiple uses in the future.
One can argue that with the introduction of mobile handsets (cell phones) the augmented reality was introduced to the masses. Suddenly, conversations could take place between people regardless of location.
Second Life - an introduction
Second life – world created by users.
Average user age: 32
Male/Female: 48/52
You can create items in second life to sell and share to others.
The ability to bring people together is an important tool for multiple purposes
- Examples of interaction between real world and Second Life: HSB started a competition in Second Life for the House of tomorrow. A form of recruiting amongst architectural students.
- US Davis Medical Center provide a schizophrenia simulation
- The potential for prototyping is large – how do winds affect buildings, what will a tsunami do to a beach?
SSE MBA island
Phd student designed the island, it was built for the purpose to investigate how people can work together virtually to conduct seminars and learn regardless of location.
Guided tour
Film of virtual worlds
Fad or future?
“Clearly if social activity migrates to synthetic worlds, economic activity will go there as well.”
Length of stay in Second Life increases as new member rate drops off.
Corporate involvement in Second Life is moving from traditional marketing to other forms of branding, recruiting and concept development.
- Internal communication within corporations is growing significantly right now.
- Cross-boundary collaboration in multinationals (e.g. Unilever) is regarded a valuable function. Multitasking through voice and text.
Virtual world projects generally fail due to technology focus rather than user focus, as well as no clear objectives.
Wikitecture vs. Architecture.
Questions
When will the state interfere? Do they do it already?
How do you police the virtual world?
Are the rules different, do the same norms apply as in the real world, how do they differ?
How come corporations hand over control of their proprietary rights to other companies (e.g. Linden Labs, the company that own Second Life)?
Lessons learned
Second Life is a multimillion dollar industry
Some people (but not very many) actually make a lot of money from it.
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